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Three leading Hong Kong democracy campaigners pleaded not guilty on Monday to public nuisance charges over their involvement in massive rallies calling for political reform.

The trio are among nine activists facing public nuisance charges for their participation in the 2014 Umbrella Movement protests in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory. The charges are based on colonial-era law and carry jail terms of up to seven years.

Sociology professor Chan Kin-man, 59, law professor Benny Tai, 54, and Baptist minister Chu Yiu-ming, 74, founded the "Occupy Central" movement in 2013 and joined with the student-led Umbrella Movement which brought parts of the city to a standstill for months, calling for free elections for the city's leader.

The court was shown video clips by the prosecution which included a press conference from 2013 in which the trio explained the Occupy Central movement.

In one clip Mr Tai said the success of the movement "hinges on civic awakening" but added that civil disobedience must be "non-violent".

In an op-ed for the New York Times Monday, Mr Tai said there had been an "onslaught against free speech" in Hong Kong in recent years.

His comments came after Mr Chan said the accused would become stronger through imprisonment at a farewell talk on Wednesday night to a full house of more than 600 people at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he has been teaching for more than two decades.

He told Agence France-Presse that he had prepared for the physical and mental challenges of jail time by taking up marathon running.

Mr Chu, who has been unwell but attended Mr Chan's talk, said the trio had "prepared to walk on this path".

Hong Kong has been governed under a "one country, two systems" arrangement since it was handed back to China by Britain in 1997.

It allows far greater civil liberties than on the Chinese mainland, but there are growing fears those freedoms are being eroded.

Ahead of the trial, rights groups had urged authorities to drop what Amnesty International called the "chilling prosecution" of the nine activists, a group that includes legislators, student leaders and pro-democracy party campaigners.

Man-kei Tam, director of Amnesty International Hong Kong, warned there would be a "real danger" of more prosecutions for peaceful activism if the case was successful.

Human Rights Watch said the prosecutions raised further questions about how far authorities are trying to "politicise the courts".

The trial at the West Kowloon Magistrates' Court is expected to last 20 days.